Buster Brown

James "Buster" Brown, who has died aged 89, was a member of the Copasetics, the legendary tap dance company created after Bill "Bojangles" Robinson's passing, to keep the art form alive. In 1969 Buster crossed Africa, from Senegal to Ethiopia, as part of the Back to Africa tour, sponsored by the US state department.

Mercurial, yet thoroughly dependable, Brown had the manner of an English gentleman, but his superlative tap skills and immaculate flared trousers soon gave him away. Flares and tap dancing have come back into vogue, but tap could have faded away completely, if not for determined characters like Buster. During the 1960s and 70s he danced to jazz music in any way he could - from Cake Walking to Lindy Hop.

Born in south Baltimore, some distance from the main entertainment area in the north of the city, Buster was fortunate in being surrounded by dancers both at elementary school and Douglas high school, where he was bitten by the tap bug during his school's "Autumn Follies". He never took dance classes but learned on the street and eventually formed a group, the Three Aces - they later became the Speed Kings - who were known for extremely fast dancing in the "flash" (spectacular) style. Buster recalled that even their soft-shoe was fast.

Moving to New York in the 1940s as be-bop came in and swing waned, he was well prepared for the transition to the be-bop style tap, in which dancers "took a small space to see how many taps they could squeeze into it". Buster just followed the action.

According to him, some of the greatest tap battles were held round the back of Harlem's Apollo Theatre. There anyone who came along could join in, but wouldn't dare unless they knew they could cut it. The dancing would be so furious at times that the person in the circle would improvise something new without being aware of it - but other watching dancers would pick it up and ensure nothing valuable was lost. Similarly, on stage, drummers and tap dancers taught each other, often without even knowing it.

Buster played all the regular clubs and vaudeville circuits and toured solo with the leading big bands, including Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, until that work started disappearing during the 1950s. He was not looking for fame and fortune, but whereas many dancers gave up he did anything and everything to survive. Anything involving tap caught his attention. So, having been a founding member of the Copasetics, classy light footed dancers, he was also one of the Hoofers, who were the heavy-hitters.

New recruits to tap in the 1970s began enlarging the scene. Sheer persistence brought recognition and bigger opportunities to him, rather then him having to find them. Brief roles in the feature films The Cotton Club (1984) and Tap (1989), both in connection with Gregory Hines, and appearances in Duke Ellington's Sacred Concert, the original Paris and the Broadway versions of Black And Blue, and, more recently, Savion Glover's production Footnotes, were only some of his many later performances.

Glover paid special tribute to Buster in his Broadway success Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk. And there were various television appearances, including a Public Broadcasting System special The Gershwin Gala, and Great Feats Of Feet, which brought him to London's Riverside Studios with Chuck Green and Sandman Simms in the late 1970s.

Someone who could blithely rise above the tensions that existed from time to time between the Hoofers and the Copasetics clearly had an extraordinarily generous spirit. His Sunday afternoon "Family Tap Jams" held at New York's Swing 46 exemplified this quality.

It was remarked that, in a city and an industry that can often be harsh and judgmental, Buster made everyone feel at home - even when he didn't know them. He modestly accepted various awards and presentations, but was astounded to receive an honorary doctorate from Oklahoma City University in February this year.

Towards the end, he used to dance the first couple of bars of his signature tune - Cute - and then stop and sing along with the audience. He knew that most of the time everyone present could go through this routine in their minds.

He told one reporter recently, "I tell the kids coming up that if you love something that much, you must respect it, and to leave something clean behind when you finish. Nothing derogatory, remember that!"